of expressing a spark of that sentiment, for the purpose of expressing which he had made this journey to Devonshire. It is not pleasant to make love in the presence of a third person, even when that love is all fair and above board; but it is quite impracticable to do so to a married lady, when that married lady’s sister is present. No more futile visit than this of Colonel Osborne’s to the Clock House was ever made. And yet, though not a word was spoken to which Mr. Trevelyan himself could have taken the slightest exception, the visit, futile as it was, could not but do an enormous deal of harm. Mrs. Crocket had already guessed that the fine gentleman down from London was the lover of the married lady at the Clock House, who was separated from her husband. The wooden-legged postman and the ostler were not long in connecting the man among the tombstones with the visitor to the house. Trevelyan, as we are aware, already knew that Colonel Osborne was in the neighbourhood. And poor Priscilla Stanbury was now exposed to the terrible necessity of owning the truth to her aunt. “The Colonel,” when he had sat an hour with his young friends, took his leave; and, as he walked back to Mrs. Crocket’s, and ordered that his fly might be got ready for him, his mind was heavy with the disagreeable feeling that he had made an ass of himself. The whole affair had been a failure; and though he might be able to pass off the porch at Cockchaffington among his friends, he could not but be aware himself that he had spent his time, his trouble, and his money for nothing. He became aware, as he returned to Lessboro’, that had he intended to make any pleasant use whatever of his position in reference to Mrs. Trevelyan, the tone of his letter and his whole mode of proceeding should have been less patriarchal. And he should have contrived a meeting without the presence of Nora Rowley.
As soon as he had left them, Mrs. Trevelyan went to her own room, and Nora at once rejoined Priscilla.
“Is he gone?” asked Priscilla.
“Oh, yes;—he has gone.”
“What would I have given that he had never come!”
“And yet,” said Nora, “what harm has he done? I wish he had not come, because, of course, people will talk! But nothing was more natural than that he should come over to see us when he was so near us.”
“Nora!”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t believe all that? In the neighbourhood! I believe he came on purpose to see your sister, and I think that it was a dastardly and most ungentlemanlike thing to do.”
“I am quite sure you are wrong, then,—altogether wrong,” said Nora.
“Very well. We must have our own opinions. I am glad you can be so charitable. But he should not have come here,—to this house, even though imperative business had brought him into the very village. But men in their vanity never think of the injury they may do to a woman’s name. Now I must go and write to my aunt. I am not going to have it said hereafter that I deceived her. And then I shall write to Hugh. Oh dear; oh dear!”
“I am afraid we are a great trouble to you.”
“I will not deceive you, because I like you. This is a great trouble to me. I have meant to be so prudent, and with all my prudence I have not been able to keep clear of rocks. And I have been so indignant with Aunt Stanbury! Now I must go and eat humble-pie.”
Then she eat humble-pie,—after the following fashion:—
Dear Aunt Stanbury,
After what has passed between us, I think it right to tell you that Colonel Osborne has been at Nuncombe Putney, and that he called at the Clock House this morning. We did not see him. But Mrs. Trevelyan and Miss Rowley, together, did see him. He remained here perhaps an hour.
I should not have thought it necessary to mention this to you, the matter being one in which you are not concerned, were it not for our former correspondence. When I last wrote, I had no idea that he was coming,—nor had mamma. And when you first wrote, he was not even expected by Mrs. Trevelyan. The man you wrote about was another gentleman;—as I told you before. All this is most disagreeable and tiresome;—and would be quite nonsensical, but that circumstances seem to make it necessary.
As for Colonel Osborne, I wish he had not been here; but his coming would do no harm,—only that it will be talked about.
I think you will understand how it is that I feel myself constrained to write to you. I do hope that you will spare mamma, who is disturbed and harassed when she gets angry letters. If you have anything to say to myself, I don’t mind it.
Yours truly,
Priscilla Stanbury.
The Clock House, Friday, August 5.
She wrote also to her brother Hugh; but Hugh himself reached Nuncombe Putney before the letter reached him.
Mr. Bozzle watched the Colonel out of the house, and watched him out of the village. When the Colonel was fairly started, Mr. Bozzle walked back to Lessboro’.
Chapter XXII.
Shewing How Miss Stanbury Behaved to Her Two Nieces
The triumph of Miss Stanbury when she received her niece’s letter was certainly very great,—so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. “Well,—well,—what do you think, Dolly?”
“About what, aunt? I don’t know who the letter is from.”
“Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!”
Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manœuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. “But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?”
“No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there.” Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind.
“You don’t mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?”
“I don’t know where he is now. I’m not his keeper. And, I’m glad to say, I’m not the lady’s keeper either. Ah, me! It’s a bad business. You can’t touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,—for the family’s sake.”
But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece’s three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla’s honesty, and began also to perceive that there
